Oh Boy! Jellyfish

Credit: Ned Deloach

The striking beauty of the Bonaire banded box jellyfish belies its venomous sting. The jelly was discovered in the waters off the island of Bonaire in…Read More »

the Dutch Caribbean; the species was named Tamoya ohboya by a teacher as part of a citizen science project, with the assumption that someone stung would exclaim "Oh boy!" The jellyfish is one of a small group of perhaps 50 box-jellyfish species. Unlike other jellyfish, the box jellies have vision. Less «

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Sneezin' in the Rain

Credit: Thomas Geissmann/Fauna & Flora International

A previously unknown type of snub-nosed monkey, discovered in northern Myanmar and dubbed Rhinopithecus strykeri, has a nose so upturned that the animals…Read More »

sneeze audibly when it rains. To avoid inhaling water, the monkeys supposedly sit with their heads tucked between their knees on drizzly days, according to local hunters. The species, shown here in a Photoshop reconstruction based on a Yunnan snub-nosed monkey and a carcass of the newly discovered species. [Read more about this sneezing monkey] Less «

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Hellish Hot

Credit: A. G. Borgonie, Ghent University, Belgium

With a length of just 0.02 inches (0.5 millimeters), these tiny nematodes called Devil's worm are the deepest terrestrial multicellular organisms on Earth.…Read More »

The worms were discovered at a depth of nearly a mile (1.3 kilometers) in a South African gold mine; the species was named Halicephalobus mephisto for the Faust legend of the devil, as the new species must survive immense underground pressure and devilish-hot temperatures. (Worm is shown here in a scanning electron microscope image.) Less «

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Pink Beads

Credit: B. G. Borgonie, Ghent University, Belgium

Glass beads where the nematodes, called Devil's worm, were found living in the brownish-colored bacterial biofilm.

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Ants Beware!

Credit: C. van Achterberg

This new species of parasitic wasp cruises at just under a half-inch (1 centimeter) above the ground in Madrid, Spain, in search of its target: other ants.…Read More »

With a target in sight, the teensy wasp attacks from the air like a tiny dive-bomber, depositing an egg in less than one-20th of a second. Less «

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Funky Fungus

Credit: Thomas Bruns

A funky new mushroom species "lives in the rain forest, under a tree," and researchers say it's nearly as strange as its SpongeBob SquarePants namesake.…Read More »

Shaped like a sea sponge, the bright orange (and sometimes purple) mushroom, Spongiforma squarepantsii, was discovered in the forests of Sarawak, Malaysia, on the island of Borneo. Less «

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Wandering Leg Sausage

Credit: G. Brovad

A giant millipede about the length of a sausage bears the common name "wandering leg sausage," which also is at the root of its Latin name: Crurifarcimen…Read More »

vagans. The species holds a new record as the largest millipede, extending 6.3 inches or 16, found in one of the world's biodiversity hotspots, Tanzania's Eastern Arc Mountains. Less «

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Lots 'O Limbs

Credit: G. Brovad

The new species of millipede is about 0.6 inches (1.5 centimeters) in diameter with 56 more or less podous rings, or body segments bearing ambulatory limbs, each with two pairs of legs.

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Walking Cactus

Credit: Jianni Liu

Although this new species looks more like a "walking cactus" than an animal at first glance, Diania cactiformis belongs to an extinct group called the…Read More »

armored Lobopodia, which had wormlike bodies and multiple pairs of legs. The animal lived about 520 million years ago, with its fossil discovered in southwestern China. Less «

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Night Stalker

Credit: Jaap Vermeulen

A slender night stalker is one way to describe this rare orchid from Papua New Guinea whose flowers open around 10 p.m. at night and close early the next…Read More »

morning, hence it's common name, night-blooming orchid. Bulbophyllum nocturnum, as it is referred to in its Latin name, is thought to be the first night-blooming orchid recorded among the more than 25,000 known species of orchids. Less «

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Blue Tarantula

Credit: Rogério Bertani/ Instituto Butantan

Breathtakingly beautiful, this iridescent hairy blue tarantula is the first new animal species from Brazil to be named on the top 10 list. Pterinopelma…Read More »

sazimai is not the first or only blue tarantula but truly spectacular and from "island" ecosystems on flattop mountains. Less «

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Lofty Poppy

Credit: Paul Egan

One of the top 10 new species, the Nepalese autumn poppy, or Meconopsis autumnalis, shown here flowering in the wild at more than 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) in Nepal, Himalaya.

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Author Bio

Jeanna Bryner

Before becoming managing editor, Jeanna served as a reporter for Live Science and SPACE.com for about three years. Previously she was an assistant editor at Scholastic's Science World magazine. Jeanna has an English degree from Salisbury University, a Master's degree in biogeochemistry and environmental sciences from the University of Maryland, and a science journalism degree from New York University.